About Me

... formerly known as Strider. It’s an old joke instigated by a girlfriend back in college.
I used to be seen hiking through the snow wearing a floppy hat and carrying a walking staff ... the whole thing. Much has changed since then.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

03:30pm: Casket arrives at the Gerald R Ford Museum. President Ford will lie in public repose thoughout the night.

Wednesday, January 3rd

02:00pm: Funeral at Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids (East Great Falls from American Pie). Private internment will follow in the crypt north of the museum.

The Secret Service and TSA have designated this an extreme high security event with physical security to the areas of the museum, the church, and routes between. I have business that will take me to all sides of the city that day, so will have to route via the outer beltways rather than going through the city center.

The south parking lot at the museum is already full of TV satellite trucks and they have started shutting down some of the roads in preparation for this event.

Its a good thing that school doesn't resume until Thursday as we have 3 Universities, a Community College, and an Art School all within a one mile radius of the Ford Museum. The Secret Service doesn't need to deal with students that "have to get to class" in addition to accommodating Shepherd Smith and the other newsreaders.

The fence appears to be only a year or so old. Other work (besides adding the "2006") includes caulking around the primary slabs at the back of the circular area. This may have been in preparation for moving the slabs to access the burial site. These changes can be seen more clearly in the following picture.

Crypt Close-Up

There are few memorial gifts at the North sign to the museum.

The majority of the chaos is at the South end where the TV satellite trucks are parked.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

The following link to Google Maps shows the Gerald R Ford Museum. The Museum is the triangle shape to the left of the words Ah-Nab-Awen Park. You can see the location of the "crypt" just north of the museum. There is a semi-circular walkway leading from the front sidewalk to the "crypt" area.

Across the Grand River you can see the DeVos Place convention center and the City/County buildings with the Alexander Calder painting on top. There is a Calder stabile in the plaza in front of the buildings, but it isn't very visible in the satellite photo.

This whole area will be blocked off for the funeral (much like they did for the dedication when we hosted another gaggle of Presidents/former-Presidents). The Secret Service will make it more fun than dealing with the TSA.

Its no wonder that it took people 4 to 5 hours waiting in line. At least they used the three football field sized (160,000 square foot) DeVos Place Exhibit Hall to hold a good deal of the lines so that people weren't standing outside the whole 5 hours.

I was looking for something else and came across this. My first thoughts were that it was a dummy entry like the test posts that the NYT occasionally releases, but after checking Google News I found that that Betty Ford had just announced it.

Needless to say this will make for an interesting two weeks here in GR. The planned resting place is on the grounds of the Gerald R Ford Museum on the west bank of the Grand River. The "crypt" location sits north of the museum proper (which is to the right of the picture of museum on the web site). This overlooks Ah-Nab-Awen Park, a broad grassy area (6+ acres) that is used for the musical performances that accompany the Fourth of July celebrations as well as the September Celebration on the Grand.

(Now if I can just get my act together and get my posts from the past year out of "draft")

Another Update: The Grand Rapids Press published a Special Section about President Gerald R Ford. Note how they attributed the "played too much football with his helmet off" quote on page 7 to one Linden Badness Johnson. (I think that was a transcription error and they meant Lyndon Baines Johnson.)